I've just finished reading book 9, The Language of Bees and I want to share a short excerpt with anyone interested. The below spoiler (though it doesn't really spoil anything of note) contains a short excerpt from chapter 40 (of 47), a snippet that I really enjoyed. It occurs during the first stop (in York) of a hurried (this is 1924) flight from London to Northern Scotland.

VERY MINOR SPOILER:

Spoiler:

I let Javitz hand me down from my perch; on terra firma, I could feel my bones sway as if I’d been on a long sea voyage. I said, “It’s hard to believe we left London at dawn and we’re already in York.”

“You needn’t shout, Miss Russell.”

“Sorry,” I said. “My ears are ringing.”

“But it’s true, this is the next revolution in travel.”

Emergency speed was one thing, but I did not imagine the world was full of people eager to be cramped into place, shaken about, deafened, frozen, boiled, and frightened silly for the sake of a few hours saved. “I don’t believe I’ll invest in Imperial Airways quite yet, thank you.”

Now on to the next one, book 10, The God of the Hive.

I've just finished reading book 10, The God of the Hive, which was actually a second installment of the story line begun in book 9, The Language of Bees. It sure didn't disappoint!!

I've just now read the 1st chapter of the latest book in the series, book 11, The Pirate King (2011 release) and I was both disappointed, (really, Mary Russell with the tin ear involved in a Gilbert & Sullivan production!!!) and at the same time, intrigued. I'll just bet that my disappointment will be alleviated before long. Onward!

With automatic delivery I hadn't noticed that I now had the March/April and May/June issues already on my iPhone!

I seem to remember reading a Larry Niven short story about the start of the wars. It was about a human exploration ship encountered by the Kzinti. The Kzinti were going to destroy the unarmed ship and the crew, and Earth in general, were pacifists. One was not as pacifistic and used the ships photon drive to destroy the Kzinti ship. This was sometime in the mid to late '70s.
Apache

I seem to remember reading a Larry Niven short story about the start of the wars. It was about a human exploration ship encountered by the Kzinti. The Kzinti were going to destroy the unarmed ship and the crew, and Earth in general, were pacifists. One was not as pacifistic and used the ships photon drive to destroy the Kzinti ship. This was sometime in the mid to late '70s.
Apache

Yes, that's the first modern meeting of Man and Kzin. One of the stories in this book concerns Earth's reaction to the reports from that encounter.

I finished up K.J. Parker's Colours in the Steel. I enjoyed the book. All the spin and "wagging the dog" that goes on in today's conflicts/wars/politics in a fantasy setting where lawsuits are settled by a fencing bout between lawyers (advocates). There's also a war nobody really wants to fight, but gets fought regardless. Sarcastic, darkly funny and tragic all at the same time. I have the next two books in the series ready to go, but I'm not inspired enough to continue at the moment... maybe later. Not because the writing and the story wasn't good enough, but because of the format, mostly. This is the first book of Parker's I've read that wasn't a stand-alone, and as such, it left a slightly unpleasant taste in my mouth.

It was a tad longer than it needed to be, and I frankly can't appreciate exposition and setup taking place at the end of a book (even with the next two sitting on the "shelf"; ready to go). It just feels weird. The last chunk of Colours in the Steel devolved into the messy exposition of characters and plot-lines that were being elevated from minor roles to more prominent ones—presumably in preparation for the next book in the Trilogy. Not nearly enough resolution for the time investment. Another potentially great story that stumbled because it just had to be part of a Series. Oh well.

This week I read What Happened to Tom by Christopher Taffen, based upon a recommendation by one of our author/members. It's a very depressing allegorical tale wherein a man is abducted and against his will forced to be used a human dialysis machine. If he severs the connection between himself and the patient to whom he is connected, the patient will die. The treatment, he is told, will take nine months, in which he will suffer weight gain, bloating, vomiting, etc. I think you get the picture.

Also this week I read Emergency Laughter: It Wasn't Funny When It Happened, But It Is Now! by MobileRead member Mike Cyra. This book is probably not for everyone, but I'm convinced that all those who have ever worked in the medical field will recognize many of the situations and find the book quite funny, very real, and in many places, plain out-and-out hilarious. I loved it.

Mr. Cyra, if You're reading this, you know those Chest Tube Blow Darts? I remember an incident while in training to be an Army medic at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas where we were practicing giving each other inter-muscular shots and were instructed to inject the needle "as if we were throwing a dart." Needless to say, one fellow in the room took that instruction all-too-literally! And the way "Mr. Mean & Nasty" was handled reminded me a a Sargent who came into our aid station thinking he owned the place and could boss everyone around. Turned out he had a dose of the clap. I was instructed to give him two shots of penicillin. In a variation on the method described in your book, I used two 5 cc syringes capped with burred 18 gauge needles. He got the prescribed dose of medication, but I used enough normal saline to completely fill both syringes with fluid. His reaction was nowhere near as spectacular as the gentlemen you describe in your book (he was actually pretty stoic), but I can tell you that when he came back for his second series of shots, he was one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. There's a saying in the Army that there are two classes of people you never want to anger: cooks and medics. He learned the hard way about the latter.

This week I read What Happened to Tom by Christopher Taffen, based upon a recommendation by one of our author/members. It's a very depressing allegorical tale wherein a man is abducted and against his will forced to be used a human dialysis machine. If he severs the connection between himself and the patient to whom he is connected, the patient will die. The treatment, he is told, will take nine months, in which he will suffer weight gain, bloating, vomiting, etc. I think you get the picture.

Someone bothered to make a book out of that thought experiment? Goodness me.

Perhaps I should write a book about someone who's kidnapped and taken to a railway bridge, where he's forced to choose whether or not to pull a lever and switch a train from the track with five people tied to it, to a track with only one person tied to it.